Day 9



The beach

We awoke in Tortola, part of the British Virgin Islands. What a delightful little island with a big mountain range right in the middle.

First it was off the ship at 8 and shopping in the local craft market right off the ship, right where you can’t miss it – surprise,surprise! Then we walked about 5 minutes into town for some more shopping.

By this time it was 10am and time to catch a shuttle to take us up over their mountain and to the beach on the other side with most of the tourists in town for the day.



The beach from the mountain

The ride was almost straight up and down the mountain, but after 20 minutes we made it to the beach. It was a very pretty beach, but with lots of people. We were there in time to get beach chairs right at the water line. In fact, there were waves that came up and under our chairs a lot of times, but it was fun in the sun there.

Back on the ship we had a late lunch and then sunbathed out on the deck until about 3pm when we went to our cabin to clean up and watch the ship sail.

We were out of our cabin early in the evening and watched people on the promenade deck, picked up our pictures from last night and then went to dinner.


Barb at the beach

After dinner, we skipped the lounge show so that Ed could enter the blackjack tournament. While qualifying was going on Ed played with friends who are good players and the entire table did well. Unfurl, Ed was bumped from the tournament on the last qualifying round while he was playing regular blackjack. But winnings from the table made up for not getting into the finals of the tournament.

That’s it for now – tomorrow is a day at sea and relaxation.

Our ship and a Princess ship in port



Sushi - was it good!!



Day 8



Our ship, the Freedom and the Celebrity Summitt



Day 8 brought us to the island of Antigua. We had been here once before in January of 2009 so we have seen the sights on this very tiny island. It is 64 square miles with 100,000 people and a very diverse culture.

What a surprise to wake up and look outside and see the Celebrity Summit next to us. This is the ship that we will have for our next cruise and it is bigger than we thought it would be.

We were off the ship by 8am and into the town for some shopping. They have some really nice clothing shops and Ed found some shirts in a shop that he had been to before.

Barb at Hawksbill Bay Resort and going into Eden Beach



Barb bought a purse and a few other things.

Then we took the purchases back to the ship so we wouldn’t have to carry them around. The ship is just like it is parked in the town it is so close.

Then we got a taxi to take us to Hawksbill Bay Resort and one of their beaches called Eden Beach.

 The pictures show Eden Beach from the gate and it was beautiful. It is about a ½ mile beach and we just about had it all to ourselves. When we walked down the beach, there were only about 12 people on the entire beach. What an idyllic place to be.

Eden Beach



We had asked the taxi driver to come back at 2, so we had almost 4 hours on the beach. There were a lot of clouds, so we got some good sun, but not too much.

We were picked up a 2 and taken back to the port where we walked around some more and then back to the ship to have a snack and relax. What a fun day.

 The show tonight was before dinner at 7pm and it was called Jump, Jive & Wail – a really fast-paced show with lots of singing and dancing by the cast. What an amazing job they do putting on a show every night.

Ed found some shirts that he really needed!



Then it was on to dinner with our regular tablemates. One of them Bob, took a plane to Montserrat because that was one of the island in the song Key Largo and he is trying to visit all of the places mentioned in the song.

After dinner, we went to the casino and Ed had a great table and did well. The table broke up so we stopped playing and went to bed.

 Tomorrow is our last major island, Tortola and we will be going to the beach and hopefully snorkeling.

Night